The Takedown(33)

“Okay,” he said stroking my hair. “I got you. It’ll be okay.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Come sit down. What have I told you about not wearing your helmet? Muévense, pinches primos. We have a girl in distress here.”

Normally he would have said “my girl’s in distress here.” Still, the primos begrudgingly cleared a space for me.

Without exception, Mac scorned the boys at school. He called them kickback, cutback lobbyists in training. It was his primos who were his true clan. So it was kind of a big deal that none of them liked me. Granted, I’d only officially hung out with them once, for like, a half hour. Mac had brought me to his house and introduced me the second week of our not dating. His cousin Victor had appraised me in Spanish. My EarRing’s Translate had whispered that it meant something like “This must be the little [unrecognized word] who thinks she’s too good for you. She’s got small breasts, no?” (For the sake of accuracy, I’m pretty sure Victor had not said “breasts.”)

Both Mac and I knew it hadn’t gone well. I was supposed to stay through dinner, but instead we grabbed banh mis and rode our bikes to the park to eat them. And, I mean, Mac called in sick anytime there was a new batch of tamales in the house. It was no small thing for him to opt out of his mom’s cooking.

I hadn’t been around his cousins other than in passing since then.

Mac quickly reintroduced everyone. And for the first time since AnyLies set their sights on me, with these people who I knew despised me, I felt safe. Which is maybe why my tongue unspooled and then, like we’d all been BFFs for years, I told them everything.

All of it. AnyLies’s txts. Our meeting with Graff that morning. Brittany and Community Club that afternoon. The girl on the train. The Eden hacker. The video on the big screen. The creep who kept clutching his belt. My guardian angel in the fake fur who’d played interference. How the video had attached itself to StitchBtch, and last but not least how there was a guy outside my house and he sure seemed like he was waiting for me.

Strung together in one long run-on sentence, it sounded crazy paranoid. As the primos traded raised eyebrows (brow dexterity clearly ran in the family), it wasn’t hard to tell what they were thinking.

Mac’s girl is small-chested and psychotic.

I almost apologized, but stopped myself, hearing Audra say, “Why are girls always apologizing for talking? Is there some kind of word limit we have to abide by that boys don’t?” Instead I stayed quiet and waited for their verdict.

“I’m calling the police,” Mac said.

“And telling them what?” Victor asked. “A dude asked for directions outside her house thirty minutes ago?”

“Right,” I said. “It had to be a weird coincidence. He couldn’t know I live there, right?”

“Your parents own your property?” Alfie asked. When I nodded, he poked me in the arm. “Ding—there you go. You said your vid is linked to your mom now. Search your moms. Bam. Find the real-estate listing from when they bought your house. Boom. Address.”

“Nah.” Caleb waved a hand at all of this. “It’s even easier than that. Anyone in her contacts can just WhereYouAt her. You guys ain’t heard? You don’t need your contact’s permission or anything. You just need their Doc digits and BAM! Current frickin’ GPS location. I mean, it’s expensive, like twenty-nine ninety-nine, but still.”

“That is nonsense.” Rupey ran a hand over his face.

“Is there anything to block it?” Mac asked.

“Not this week,” Caleb said. “Yo, Alfie, hermano. Cerveza me.”

Now that I had stopped crying and the immediate drama was over, Mac took his arm away. The stoop fell silent. I sniffled.

“Need a tissue?” Alfie dug around in a takeout bag.

“I got it.” Rupey waved the wadded-up one I’d thrown at him, like it was a white flag. “Sorry, just, you know, I can get kind of protective.”

“It runs in the family,” Alfie said. “It’s our one admirable quality. Along with Mac’s useless addition skills. Hola, hermano, ever hear of a Doc?”

There was a simultaneous low burble of laughter.

“Need a cerveza?” Caleb offered me his.

“Need us to beat some people up?” Victor burped.

I blew my nose. “Yeah, only about five hundred thousand of them.”

Again, the low appreciative laughter. Now I got why Mac surrounded himself with these guys. It was the same reason I surrounded myself with Mac. Life felt better in their company.

“Mugrosos, not that we don’t enjoy your clever repartee—”

“Ooh, ‘repartee,’” Rupey interrupted. “Look at the novio go all French for the girl. Réplica’s not good enough for you anymore, cuz?”

“All-caps BUT I need to talk to the lady in private.” Mac offered me a hand. “I kinda, like, need to apologize for what a dick I was yesterday.”

“A super-huge dick,” I said as Mac pulled me to my feet.

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I groaned. Caleb hid his face in the crook of his elbow. Victor choked on his beer. Mac held up his hands, feigning innocence. Alfie made a quiet extended laugh noise that sounded like “Huh-huh-huh-ahhhh.”